H.A.L.F.: The Deep Beneath

H.A.L.F.

 2

H.A.L.F.

H.A.L.F. 9 took his first ever inhalation of desert air. The arid breath filled his lungs and burned. He had become accustomed to the dank, humid recycled air of A.H.D.N.A.’s underground lab. A chill ran through him but it was not from the coolness of the night. His senses, dulled by the humid conditions he had been kept in, were coming fully alive for the first time in his seventeen years.

Though capable of emotion, he had lived a sedated life and had not experienced the full gamut of emotions one typically experiences by their late teen years. He had learned to strain his facial muscles into a smile when he knew a smile was expected. But the smile that came to his face now natural and easy, not forced. He was overcome with the joy of the freedom he had longed for all his life.

  He was alone and nearly naked save for the A.H.D.N.A. standard issue light blue cotton elastic waistband pants and rubber flip-flops. The night was young but already dark, only a few stars dotted the inky sky. But the darkness was no matter for him. His large eyes allowed him to see clearly without light.

H.A.L.F. 9 stretched his arms over his head, bent and touched his toes, then ran. He didn’t care that rocks poked his tender feet through the thin rubber of his flip-flops, or that desert shrubs scratched his legs. He knew only that he was compelled to put distance between himself and the abandoned mineshaft from whence he came. Commander Sturgis probably already knew he was missing. They would soon come for him.

With each step, the cobwebs cleared from his mind. He could practically feel the synapses firing, alive with electricity.

He had never had the chance to truly run. He did not count the time on the treadmill, electrodes pressed to his body, a computer recording his every breath and heartbeat. He widened his stride and ran faster than he had ever run before. In the dry air, he was fast. He ran more swiftly than a mere human. Faster than he had known he could.

H.A.L.F. 9 tripped over his flimsy shoes and fell to the hard, sunbaked ground. He skinned his hand and laughed out loud as he picked a pebble out of his broken skin. The sound of his laugh in the otherwise quiet, still night startled him. He had never heard himself laugh before because he had not had occasion to make such a sound. He laughed again and thrilled at the robust sound his voice made in the dry air.

He watched as blood the color of an eggplant oozed from the slice in his palm. He had been poked with needles and had his blood siphoned out so many times that he had become numb to the process. But this was different. The pain thrilled him. He could heal the wound if he wanted to but he did not. I will let it bleed and scab over. I will have my first scar.

Well, maybe not his very first scar, though the first he would have from living his own life rather than scars inflicted by others against his will. His mind was flooded with memories of needles and tests, of them scraping tissue samples and of rough pushes and shoves. His smile disappeared. The memory of wounds inflicted reminded him of something he had to do before he went any further.

H.AL.F. 9 rubbed the flesh between his thumb and first finger. He could feel the tiny implant just below the skin. He had neither a scalpel nor a sharp object to break through and extract the tracker. But the sharp rock he had landed on had done an adequate job of slicing his palm open. H.A.L.F. 9 searched the ground until he felt a stone with a jagged edge.

He took a deep breath as Dr. Randall had taught him to do when he was being pricked with a needle. He jabbed the sharp point of the rock at his flesh and pushed until he felt the skin tear.

The cut sent a wave of heat up his arm. Instinct compelled him to pull the stone away from his skin, but he ignored his impulse. He continued to press down and across until he could feel the chip exposed.